Tony finished getting dressed by pulling on his shoes as he sat on the end of the hospital bed. Gibbs was going over the discharge paperwork in the hall with the doctor. Tony felt like crap. To be more specific, he felt like he had the worst hangover ever. The doctor had given him some anti-nausea meds after having vomited up probably every last ounce of stomach acid he'd had in him. The pain meds took the edge off the migraine he'd gotten up with, and the soreness in, what felt like, every other muscle in his body. But all in all, other than feeling like he was fighting off a flu, he was ready to get out of the hospital.
"You set, DiNozzo?" his head turned toward Gibbs' voice, seeing him standing in the doorway. It didn't take Gibbs long to read the nervousness on his senior agent's face. His eyes narrowed as he came further into the room toward him. "Feelin' okay?"
Tony smirked, "Yeah, Boss, I'm good."
Gibbs cocked his head, unsatisfied with the reply. "Somethin' botherin' you?"
Tony looked down at his lap, shaking his head, "Just not sure I wanna go back to my apartment..." his reply was calm and vague, but Gibbs understood the meaning behind it.
"Wasn't plannin' on taking you back to your place," he told him and Tony looked back up at him, questioningly. "No way I'm stayin' on your couch, Tony. You're comin' to my place."
Tony let out a small laugh, "Come on, Boss. I don't need a sitter. I'm fine."
"Don't argue with me. You heard the doc. You wanna stay here?" Tony's smile faded. "That's what I thought," he picked up Tony's bag from the chair. "Come on. Let's go home."
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
"Ziva!" Abby exclaimed as she unpacked the large grocery bag filled with prepared home-cooked meals. "Where did you find the time to make all this?"
"Gibbs would not allow any of us to visit Tony," she explained.
"Yeah, I know," Abby furrowed a brow. "But that's because he needed his rest...so he could get out of there tonight."
"Yes, well...McGee spoke with Vance and got approval to write the report himself, so that Gibbs and Tony could simply review and sign, instead of reliving the events again by recalling and documenting it themselves."
"How would he be able to do that?" Abby asked as she stacked the containers into Gibbs' fridge.
"Agent Fornell supplied him with documented evidence recovered from Griswald's computer," she explained as she poured water into the coffee maker.
"You mean, like video documentation?" Abby asked, and Ziva looked over at her for a brief moment.
"I do not know," she said as she started the coffee brewing. "Director Vance gave him orders not to show it to anyone else. But I assume that it is video. How else would he be able to fill out the report?"
Abby shut the fridge and approached Ziva, "He was in my office this morning, using my computer," she told her. Ziva focused on her friend at that. "Ziva, he was watching the video, wasn't he? He was shaking before he left my lab..."
Ziva's eyes darted around on the counter for a moment. "If that was his reaction, then that was probably what he was doing in your office, yes."
"Hey, Abs," McGee said as he entered the kitchen.
She spun around to face him, "How long have you been here, Timmy?"
"Not long, really. I went to Tony's to pick up a few things for him. Clothes and his portable DVD player and some movies...I was just upstairs setting it up for him."
"Are you staying for dinner, McGee?" Ziva asked.
"I don't wanna impose," he said nervously. "Just wanted to see him...ya know...make sure he has everything he needs." McGee looked away as he swallowed and turned to head into the living room.
"Abby," Ziva put a hand on her arm, "The oven is done preheating. Can you put the rigatoni in?" Hesitantly, Abby looked over at the dish on the counter and nodded as Ziva headed after Tim.
McGee was standing, facing the couch and looking out the front window, seemingly waiting for Gibbs to arrive with Tony. She walked to stand beside him. "It's not that I don't enjoy your cooking, Ziva," he said without breaking his view out the window. "Just not hungry, is all."
"Because of what you saw?" she asked, already knowing the answer. He glanced at her briefly with a furrowed brow, before setting an uneasy gaze back out the window. "I know from personal experience, knowing about something is completely different than witnessing it. You should have brought it to me. You should not have done that alone."
"They did it alone," he looked at her, clearly frustrated.
"But they do not have to do this alone," she told him.
He searched her eyes for a moment. "What am I supposed to do?" he asked in barely a whisper. "How do I help him after all of that?"
"We do what you all did for me, after you brought me back from Somalia. We treat him the same as we always have, and not with the assumption that he has been somehow...broken. We are a family, McGee," she put a hand on his arm as she looked into his eyes. "We will be there for each other no matter what," her gaze dropped to his chest. "You all taught me that. And even though, at the time, I thought that I could deal with things alone, I needed my family," she met his eyes again. "And that is what Tony and Gibbs need now, just the same."
McGee looked at her for a long moment, absorbing what she'd told him. Then he nodded before turning his focus back out the window. "Guess I'm staying for dinner then."
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
Gibbs turned off the car after pulling up in front of his house, and he looked over at his passenger who was staring ahead, surveying the house in front of them. "Lights are on, Boss," he observed.
"Ziva made us dinner," he told Tony, and the agent looked at him. "Abby and McGee are here, too. They wanna see you; see for themselves that you're okay." He could sense the hesitancy in Tony's face. "That okay with you?" he asked.
Tony looked back at the house for a moment before looking down at his lap. "They know everything that happened?" he asked quietly.
"Fornell's team processed the scene," he told him. "And I haven't given a report yet. So whatever they may know would be surmised from Griswald's previous charges. Unless...they heard me give Ducky the run-down." Tony closed his eyes for a moment, then began to chew on his lower lip. Gibbs narrowed his eyes as he appraised him. "If you don't wanna do this tonight, I'll tell 'em to go home. But they've been worried about you. You're gonna have to see them sooner or later."
"Yeah, Boss...I know."
"What're you so afraid of?" he asked in a quiet voice, and Tony looked at him.
"I'm not afraid," he replied flatly. "I'm just...tired." His eyes fell back to his lap. "And I'm not really hungry at all."
"Nauseous?"
"Not at the moment, no."
"Well that's good, 'cause I'm sure the house is gonna smell like alfredo."
Tony's eyes shot to his, "Ziva made alfredo?"
Gibbs smirked, "You just grow an appetite?"
Tony swallowed, followed by squinting, "Not really...but if she could set some aside for me, maybe I'll be hungry later."
He nodded, "I'm sure she can handle that. So...you wanna come in? Or are you sleepin' in the car tonight?"
Tony looked back at the house and took a few deep breaths, then pushed open his door. Gibbs got out and walked around the car as Tony was shutting his own door. They both began the walk up toward the house, but Tony slowed to a stop half-way there. Gibbs turned to him with a questioning look. "What if I...freak out or somethin', Boss? Right in front of them..." he looked worriedly at him.
"That what you're so afraid of?" Gibbs asked. Tony looked down, ashamedly, sticking his hands into his pockets. Gibbs moved in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder, "You're not gonna freak out, Tony. The drugs are outta your system, or you wouldn't have been discharged. And if somethin' did happen, you really think they're gonna do anything but support you?"
"If something did happen..." he met his eyes again, "Boss, I don't wanna lose my job..." he barely whispered.
Gibbs realized just how insecure the man felt in that moment. Tony was afraid of looking weak in front of the most important people in his life right now. Gibbs stepped closer to him, "You're not gonna lose your job, Tony. It's no one's call but my own, either way. No one's questioning your ability to come back to work. That's not what this is about. You know that, right?"
"Guess so," came his quick reply.
"Don't guess, DiNozzo. Know. They're not here to assess you. They're here because they care about you. If you're tired, you can just say hello to them and go upstairs to bed if you want. No one's gonna think less of ya for it."
Tony looked at him for a moment, watching him as he turned back toward the house, then followed him up to the porch and in through the front door. He watched as Abby came excitedly up to Gibbs, first; giving him a big hug before attacking Tony with one.
"Easy, Abs," Gibbs told her.
"Oh, right! Sorry, Tony... I'm just so glad to see you!"
"It's okay, Abby," Tony told her with a smirk. "Good to see you, too." She gave him a quick smile before dragging Gibbs toward the kitchen with her.
"You look much better," Ziva said as she and Tim approached him. She gave him a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek. "How are you feeling?"
"Not too bad," he replied with a small smile. "But I'm pretty wiped out... Think it's the meds."
"I uh...picked up some of your things and put them in the guest room upstairs," McGee told him.
"Thanks, McGee," he smiled.
"Are you hungry?" Ziva asked.
"Actually...it smells great, Ziva. Thanks for going through all the trouble, but I think I'm gonna pass for now. Save me some?" She gave him an understanding smile and squeezed his arm lightly before heading to the kitchen.
"You really do look a lot better, Tony," McGee said, and Tony met his eyes again.
"Somethin' tells me, if I took my shirt off, you wouldn't say that." The look that painted Tim's face now was unreadable; his eyes darted around in discomfort. "Hey, Probie, I'm just messin' with ya," he smirked. Tim seemed to relax slightly as he met his eyes again. "I'm gonna head upstairs and take a shower. Then probably hit the hay. I'll see you Monday, okay?"
"Sure," he said, "G'night, Tony." He watched as the senior agent climbed the stairs and disappeared into the guest room. McGee walked into the kitchen to see Abby with a small plate of the pasta, and the rest of them putting things away. "I...I think I'm just gonna head home," he told them before turning and heading toward the door.
With a quick, shared glanced with Abby, Gibbs went out after him, catching him on the porch. "Everything okay, McGee?" Gibbs asked.
"Yeah, Boss," he replied as he turned to face him. They were both silent for a long moment, but McGee saw the look on Gibbs' face that told him he wasn't going to let that be the final answer. Tim took a breath, "Fornell gave me a flash drive containing files his team found on Griswald's computer. I watched the footage...just me. I mean...the files are video footage. Everything from Tony's kidnapping, to just minutes before we found you." He tried to read Gibbs' reaction, but it was completely unclear. "Anyway, I wrote out the report...so you wouldn't have to. But I'm gonna need both of you to sign it at some point."
"Where's the flash thing?" he asked calmly.
"It's with my stuff in the car," he replied. "I talked to Vance, and we both decided it'd be best not to expose the fact that there's footage at all. It'll just be filed away with the evidence, but no one else needs to see it."
Gibbs nodded and looked down at the porch for a moment, then looked up at him again. "You shouldn't have had to see that, Tim. But thank you...that's a big help; writin' up the report. You didn't have to do that."
"'Course, Boss. Anything that'll make it easier at all...I'm just..." his eyes darted around for a moment, "I'm sorry...about what happened." Gibbs narrowed his eyes as he watched the discomfort his agent seemed to be feeling; replaying what he'd seen in his head now. "Is Tony...gonna be okay now?" he looked at his eyes again.
Gibbs thought back to the previous night when McGee had asked that question; if Tony was okay. And he'd answered negatively in that moment. But now, he put a hand on Tim's shoulder, "He's gonna be fine. Promise you that. But he's gonna need you to have faith in his ability to do his job, 'cause he's got some fear about it right now. He needs you to have faith in him..."
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
Tony walked into the bathroom, clean change of clothes in-hand, and set them on the counter as he took off his tee-shirt and shut the door. For the first time since the incident, he saw his reflection, and it made him freeze. He hadn't been aware of the dark, ugly scratches on his face. He'd seen his chest and stomach when the nurses changed his bandages. But this...this was new.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd recalled that he'd done it. But seeing it now was somehow...surreal. Tony pulled the bandage from his chest, slowly, revealing the rest of the monstrosities as he viewed them in the mirror. After letting out a shaky breath, he forced himself to turn away from it and start the shower.
The water felt anything but soothing against the injuries, and he had to turn his back toward the spray for the duration of the shower. The thought ran through his head of what his teammates must have thought when they saw him as he walked in the door...
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
"Thanks, again, for everything, Ziver," Gibbs told her as she and Abby made their way out the front door. She gave him a small smile before he closed the door behind them and headed up the stairs. They girls had stayed a long while in hopes that Tony would change his mind and come down. They'd all finished dinner, cleaned up and talked over coffee until they were too tired to continue.
Gibbs glanced into the open door to the guest room, finding Tony fast asleep, curled up in the bed; the lamp still on beside it. He thought for a moment about going in to turn it off, but voted against it, thinking that it was quite possible that Tony had left it on intentionally. So he left his agent and headed to his own room, changing into an old tee-shirt and pair of sweatpants before climbing into his own bed. At first, he thought it might take a while to fall asleep. But when his head hit the pillow, the exhaustion from the past couple of days hit him hard, and he was asleep within minutes...
*~.~*
He wasn't sure why he'd woken up, but Gibbs felt most certainly pulled from his sleep suddenly. The darkness of the room indicated that it was still night. The clock confirmed he'd only been asleep for a few hours. But there didn't seem to be a particular reason for why he'd so abruptly been shaken from his slumber.
That was, until he heard something...a small sound from somewhere outside his bedroom door. He strained to hear it further, then realized exactly what it was... Pushing himself out of bed, he made his way toward the guestroom to find it had gone dark. He flipped on the overhead light to see Tony curled up, tangled in the covers, still asleep, but softly whimpering where he lay.
Gibbs approached the bed, quietly, examining the pained expression on his friend's face. He sat on the edge of the bed next to him and reached a hand to lay on his arm, "Tony," he said softly. All at once, Gibbs realized the position Tony was in...his hands crossed in front of his chest and his body curled tightly into itself. Immediately, he began to untangle the covers from his agent before attempting to wake him again. "Tony," he called again, softly, placing a hand on the side of the agent's face this time.
Instead of waking, Tony seemed to become calm. His body relaxed along with his expression, and his breathing seemed to regulate and indicate a more peaceful sleep. After a few minutes, Gibbs decided that Tony would be alright, granted the light stay on and the covers remain loose. He slowly stood from the bed and quietly made his way to the door, turning once more to confirm his friend's continued state of calm, before heading back to his own room...
11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11 111 11
tbc...